


Cuardaigh

by thimble



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 13:18:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12013584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/pseuds/thimble
Summary: You know that the sky is blue, the grass is green, and blood is as red as you are a Dullahan. You ride on a steed blacker than night, your purpose is hidden, somewhere, in your immortal bones, and for the first time you fear everything and revere nothing.Your name is Celty Sturluson.But that is all you know.





	Cuardaigh

The sky is blue, the grass is green, and blood is as red as you are a Dullahan. You ride on a steed blacker than night, your purpose is embedded in your immortal bones, and you are both feared and revered.

Your name is Celty Sturluson.

On a day like any other, less than a blink in all the lives you (haven't) lived, you set about to do as you've always done when suddenly-- suddenly--

The sky is still blue, the grass is still green, and blood is as red as you are-- as you are--?

[A Dullahan], a faint voice supplies, the closest thing you have to conscious thought coming to your aid. Blood is as red as you are a Dullahan, and right beside where you are lain is the steed you ride, blacker than night, and your purpose is--

The wind tailing at your heels, doors flung open and bodies, alive when you find them, doused in a shower of blood, but why?

You've been alive forever, but why do you  _live_?

Something, something is missing... a void near your ribs when you curl your arm experimentally, a defining weight...

If you were human you might laugh, gaping and loud, teeth showing; if you had a mouth, which you might have, once. Of course! The mouth on your head, the head, you realize, that isn't  _here._

You know that the sky is blue, the grass is green, and blood is as red as you are a Dullahan. You ride on a steed blacker than night, your purpose is hidden, somewhere, in your immortal bones, and for the first time you fear everything and revere nothing.

Your name is Celty Sturluson.

But that is all you know.

 

* * *

 

This mystery is easy, this mystery will solve itself once you find your head. You cannot remember past today and several years' worth of yesterdays, but you will once you are reunited with the cradle of your memories. It's not gone, not destroyed; just away, giving off a faint signal that links it to its place by your side.

[Hold on, I'm coming. And then I'll know who I am.]

You trace it on a vessel about to sail on open water. The humans cannot find you as you are, so you take to the shadows, your element and your home. You cannot leave your steed, bound to you by a contract older than time, behind, so you shape him into a smaller, more inconspicuous form. You think you will wait until your feet set on land and your search can begin, again.

Your wait turns out shorter, much shorter than you thought, cut in quarters by a man with a soul that's darker than coal.

Somehow he knows who you are and why you're here; somehow he can speak in a tongue you can understand (or is it the other way around?) A bargain is what he wants, and what he asks is easy enough.

You cannot do as you're trying to, if you don't remain undetected on this ship.

You nod. He seems...  _happy_ , at that.

On a flat, hard surface under a dim, swinging light he asks you to lie, binding your ankles and wrists. You're not afraid, of course not, until suddenly-- suddenly--

With the mouth you do not have, the mouth that you're missing you  _scream_ , because there's a blade embedded in your center, at war with your skin, and you have never felt this alive, so alive you'd rather disappear.

[Please let me disappear.]

The man's voice hovers above you, clinical but not cold. Rather, he sounds fascinated, explaining to the child watching -- has he always been there? a presence so unobtrusive and small? -- that if you were like either of them you would have passed out from the pain.

Pain. That's what it is. You wonder how they can stand it.

And then, right before your vision clouds, you hear him ask the child if he wants to  _try._  You ought to feel anger but there is only a seed of pity, planted in the heart you don't have.

You know, as much as you can while you're so incomplete, that this boy will not lead a normal life.


End file.
